


Just Anybody

by Kacka



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 05:22:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5696554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kacka/pseuds/Kacka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy is a bartender, trying to treat Clarke like he would any other customer. Unfortunately, he's not as over her as he'd like to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Anybody

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, so let me know what you think!?!

The thing is, Bellamy  _ likes _ his job. His bar– because that’s what he calls it in his head– is clean and relaxed, close to his apartment and not at all sketchy. He likes his coworkers, likes the regular patrons, and has been working there long enough that he has some kind of seniority when it comes to choosing shifts. He doesn’t need the bar as much as he did when he was helping Octavia through college, but his grad student budget works a lot better with some extra cash flow. Besides, he’s used to working. He wouldn’t know what to do with loads of free time.

 

At least, these are all the reasons he lists to himself when she walks in one night and an irrational piece of his brain starts drafting a letter of resignation.

 

Of course Clarke would come here. He’d known she’d moved to town, known she’d gotten a job at the hospital just a couple of blocks down. His bar is close and nice and she’s probably moved on since they broke up.

 

The first time he sees her come in, he sends Miller over to serve her. Miller calls him a wuss but is ultimately aware that Bellamy is kind of a mess when it comes to Clarke and takes her order. She gets a Jack and coke and a basket of onion rings, and he avoids her all night.

 

The next time he’s slightly more prepared, barely even reacting when he sees her, and he’s torn between being glad Octavia is there to distract him and annoyed that she’s still so angry with Clarke that he almost feels like he needs to defend her. Almost.

 

“What is she doing here?” His sister growls, glowering in Clarke’s general direction. Bellamy swats her arm and is reminded how much those self-defense classes are paying off.

 

“She works down the street, O. It’s a free country; she can drink wherever she wants.”

 

She turns her glare on her brother and he glares right back. He’s the one who taught her that expression, after all. She doesn’t get to intimidate him with it.

 

“How are you being so calm about seeing her again?”

 

“She came in the other night. I’ve had some time to adjust.”

 

“And you didn’t tell me?”

 

He shrugs, uncomfortable. He hadn’t meant to keep it from O but he wasn’t interested in her pity.

 

“If it makes you feel better, Miller can give you a play-by-play of my meltdown.”

 

“It does  _ not _ make me feel better, Bell. She moved across the country and didn’t even tell us she was leaving. I get to be mad at her.” She eyes Clarke again, who has now gotten settled at a tall table in the back and is slumped against the wall as if it’s the only thing keeping her vertical. He tries to squash his inclination to go over and ask her if there’s anything he can do. What he told Octavia is true: he’s her bartender and nothing more. If she wants a cab, she can call one. If she wants a drink, she can come order one like any other customer. Until then, he’ll leave her alone.

 

“Have you guys talked?” Octavia asks, drawing his attention away from his ex. Bellamy shakes his head, wondering where he’d even start that conversation.

 

They hadn’t been dating that long when she up and left, but they’d been friends for years. For almost the whole time they’d known each other, even though she’d dated Finn and Lexa, and he’d had that arrangement with Roma, he’d felt as if they’d been orbiting each other. Waiting for their planets to align.

 

For a few glorious months, it felt like they’d finally gotten the timing right, but then she disappeared. She’d said goodbye, even explained what he already knew: that she’d been struggling in med school and needed a fresh start, so she’d taken a semester-long internship in another city. She’d told him she was leaving, and that she hadn’t wanted him to wait for her.

 

So now here he is, hiding from his ex-girlfriend, ex-best friend, ex-everything, really, and giving her the cold shoulder. He knows it’s a dick move, but what can he say? He’s kind of a dick.

 

“She knows where I am if she has something to say.”

 

The next time, she shows up while he’s the only bartender on shift. Lincoln is technically in the kitchen handling food orders, but Bellamy decides it would probably be excessive to ask him to come take her order. He’s a professional. He can do this.

 

She’s seated at the bar this time, nothing but a few feet separating them. Her hair is pulled half-back like she always used to wear it, and her eyes aren’t as bright as they would probably have been before her shift, but he tries not to notice all that and asks for her drink order.

 

“Jack and coke.” She bites her lip and he keeps his eyes firmly on the drink he’s making. “It’s been a while,” she says and he has to hold back a sarcastic comment. He wouldn’t be rude to any other patron.

 

He knows she likes slightly more Jack than most do, but she’s just another customer and so he pours the standard ratio.

 

“Closing out or starting a tab?” He asks, sliding the finished drink over to her.

 

If her face falls a little, well, he tries not to notice that either.

 

“What, no witty bartender banter?” She asks, trying to keep her voice light. “No patented Bellamy Blake hostility?”

 

“That’s not in my job description,” he shrugs, more cavalier than he feels. Her eyes– he’d forgotten how  _ blue  _ they are– freeze him in place for a long moment, and then she sighs and slides a bill across the counter.

 

“Keep the change.”

 

After that she always sits at the bar when she’s there, which is about once a week (not that he’s keeping track). He asks Miller if she ever comes when he’s not there and his friend smacks him on the back of his head before answering, “Sometimes. When her coworkers come, I guess.”

 

But when Bellamy’s working, she always drinks alone.

 

It’s only chance he’s working the Tuesday she stumbles in, her raincoat dripping all over his floor. He’d swapped shifts with Echo and the bar has been mostly empty all afternoon until she arrives.

 

She slides onto a bar stool and sheds her coat. 

 

“Scotch. Neat,” she calls down the bar to him, rummaging in her wallet for a second before sliding her card onto the counter. “Keep them coming.” And she drops her head to rest on her folded arms.

 

Bellamy keeps her in his periphery the whole time as he’s pouring, but she barely stirs until he sets the glass down by her elbow with a thunk. Scotch neat is– was– her dad’s drink of choice, and even though he hadn’t really been keeping track of the date, he realizes that today is, in fact, the anniversary of Jake’s death.

 

He watches from the corner of his eye as she drowns her sorrows, fighting himself not to go wrap her up in a hug or tell her he knows what it’s like to miss a parent so much it aches. After pouring her a second glass, he ducks into the back room, returning in a couple of moments with an object in his hand that he places next to her drink with as much gentleness as he can muster.

 

She pauses with her drink halfway to her mouth, letting it drop back to the bar with no gentleness at all, in her haste to pick up her dad’s watch.

 

“You left it at my place,” he says, trying to sound disinterested. When it had become clear that she was going to be a regular, he’d stuffed it in his locker to return to her. Watching her cradle the watch, he feels like he’s just given her the last piece of herself she might have left behind. He’s aware there’s a piece of himself she carries with her, unknowingly. He’s all but given that up for lost by now.

 

She looks up at him and her eyes are watering, but all she says is, “Can I close my tab, please?”

 

He tells himself it’s for the best. He isn’t even sure what he wanted her to say, really. If she’s just another customer to him, then he’s just another bartender to her, and that’s the way the world is now. When he floats this theory by Octavia and Miller they just exchange glances that basically translate to,  _ can you believe this idiot? _

 

Miller smacks him again and drifts down the bar to tend to a patron who is waving their arm obnoxiously.

 

“Pretending you two don’t mean the world to each other probably qualifies you both for some kind of idiocy award,” Octavia declares.

 

Before he can respond, she’s off her stool and moving towards Clarke, who looks like she’s readying herself for battle. It’s not a conversation he wants to get in the middle of– Clarke and Octavia are two of the most terrifying people he knows, when they want to be– but it is one he wants to eavesdrop on.

 

Unfortunately the bar is actually pretty crowded, so he only catches snippets here and there as he passes them. It doesn’t look like he’s going to have to break up a bar brawl; they both have their heads bent toward each other, speaking intensely but quietly and wearing their Serious Conversation faces. 

 

All he really catches of what they’re saying is Octavia asking, “Yeah, but why  _ this _ bar?” Which is something he’s been wondering, too. He’s definitely been more on edge since she started coming here, and she can’t enjoy the tension between them any more than he does.

 

“It’s a nice bar. I can chill and unwind after work without worrying about walking through a bad part of town or getting hit on by a bunch of random strangers.” Even as much as he’s straining to hear them above the chatter of the other patrons, he can hear the lie in her voice. 

 

They talk for a while longer, and she and Octavia hug before his sister breezes back past him with a flippant, “It’s not all better, but it’s a start. I need to lighten the mood, so I’m going to go flirt with Lincoln!” And then she’s gone, and Miller’s busy, and he can feel Clarke’s gaze following him for the rest of the night.

 

He lets Miller serve her, even after the rush has died down, but at some point his friend decides flirting semi-successfully with Monty trumps dealing with Bellamy’s ex because he’s too weird to do it himself, which is fair. Wiping down the bar and restocking only distracts him to a point, and then it’s last call. She hasn’t stayed this late before, and if the pink of her cheeks is any indication, she’s more than a little tipsy, which does nothing but endear her to him further. It feels dangerous, approaching her in this state, but he somehow can’t make himself turn in the other direction.

 

“Bellamy!” She crows when it’s clear he’s coming to her. He smiles despite himself, swiping her dirty glass to rinse.

 

“Last call. Can I get you anything?” He’s tempted to offer her water or something starchy, but he’s suddenly wondering what he would offer for a normal customer.

 

“Is it that late?” She looks at her wrist, and he’s startled to see she’s wearing her dad’s watch. He’d gotten kind of used to seeing it on his bookshelf. “I guess I’ll just close out. I didn’t realize how long Octavia and I talked.”

 

He retrieves her card for her, printing the receipt and second-guessing the fact that he wants to have an actual conversation with her.

 

“Yeah,” he’s saying suddenly, and without any real input from his brain. “It seemed like you guys had a good conversation.”

 

“We did,” she says, nodding decisively, as if to punctuate her words. As if he won’t believe them if she doesn’t say it with conviction. “I don’t think things are all the way fixed–” she breaks off, looking up at him and flushing. He’s in very dangerous territory now, but instead of looking for the escape route, he asks the question that’s been on his mind for the past couple of hours.

 

“Why this bar?” She cocks her head, and the gesture is so familiar he has to keep talking. “I heard the reasons you gave O earlier, and… they’re good reasons, but they didn’t sound true.”

 

She’s sobered a little now, and she sizes him up before answering.

 

“I missed you,” she said simply. “I just wanted to be close to you. I know I owe you, like, a million different apologies, and I knew I had no grounds for just showing up and telling you that I wanted you back, but I didn’t know what else to say.” She looks down at her hands, clasped on the bar, and he feels like this has to be a practical joke or something. “It didn’t matter if you were giving me the cold shoulder,” she continues. “I deserve that, and more. But I figured at some point I’d just figure out how to tell you all this without babbling like a slightly intoxicated moron. Which I have now done. So. Sorry for– yeah. Just. Sorry.”

 

She’s mostly steady when she slides off the stool, and she gives him one long look before heading for the door.

 

He stands there, dumbstruck, until the door shuts with a snap that brings him back to his senses. A quick glance at Miller confirms that  _ yes _ , he heard everything and he will cover closing, and then he’s out the door and half-jogging down the sidewalk to catch up to her.

 

She hears him coming before he quite gets to her, so she ends up kind of half-turned toward him in his arms, but then she’s wrapping her arms tight around his neck and he’s breathing in the scent of her shampoo– coconut and  _ Clarke _ – and he feels like all is right with the world.

 

“I missed you too,” he says, muffled into her skin. “And I didn’t know what to say either.”

 

Her exhale is warm on his skin as she laughs shakily.

 

“Good thing I ramble when I’ve been drinking.”

 

He half-laughs and pulls back to finally,  _ finally _ kiss her. She responds without missing a beat and it’s like no time has passed. He’s still crazy about her and she’s found her way back to him and they just  _ fit _ .

 

When he draws back, he runs his hand down her arm to tangle his fingers with hers because he can’t bring himself to move too far away.

 

“Walk me home?” She asks, a little breathless.

 

“I’d love to,” he grins back, not letting go of her hand for a second. “But I want you to be aware that I wouldn’t do this for just anybody.”


End file.
